Sunday, March 13, 2011

Comics on the Bubble: Loose Cannon #1-4 (1995)

Hoo boy. Somehow I had fond memories of this thing, and I also seem to remember it was a test run for Jeph Loeb's later run on the Hulk. I was wrong about a lot of things with this one.

Jeph Loeb did indeed write this, but it has little connection to his multi-colored Hulk epic of the past few years. Loose Cannon is a New Blood, a metahuman created when he was bitten by one of those parasite aliens back in the 90's. By day, he's a handicapped police officer, at night he becomes the "mood ring of super-heroes" Loose Cannon. It seems he progresses from blue, to purple, to red, and eventually to white, getting stronger and more mindless the angrier he gets. We've seen countless variations on this idea over the years, and it isn't like this interpretation adds a lot to the comic mythos. Loose Cannon is a generic brawler who blunders his way through these four issues mostly because of his own mistakes. A few conversations and issues 2&3 could be eliminated, and it isn't like we learned a ton about either aspect of Cannon's personality in issues 1&4.

Superman shows up and takes it easy on Loose Cannon, but the Eradicator immediately plunges into a prolonged battle. I remember liking the Eradicator, but now I need to seek out his mini-series to see if that is worse than I remember too. The worst part about this series is the terrible team of bounty hunters out after Cannon. Bounty Inc. is Highkick, Bomber, and Traxx. They look terribly 90's, with long hair and pouches everywhere. Worse still, they are the main opponents for two issues, yet little characterization here to care about. Maggie Sawyer of the Metropolis Special Crimes division gets some face time, but her inability to see through Cannon's simple duplicity makes her seem stupid. I mean, both her employee and Cannon call her "Mags!"

Adam Pollina is a fantastic artist, and you can see that in these pencils. Loose Cannon may have a terrible haircut and costume, but there are moments where he looks great. A lot of the panels look rushed, but you can see that Pollina has got some skills.